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Video: Jobs' harsh words on competitors

Closed captioning of: Jobs' harsh words on competitors

>>>a new video of the celebration that the company held for
steve jobs
last week.
apple
closed all of its stores worldwide, so every one of its employees could tune in for that celebration. meanwhile, a new biography on
steve jobs
hit bookstores today.
walter isaacson
sat down with jobs more than 40 times and recounts details of his battle with cancer, his relationship with his biological parents, and the blunt, harsh words that he had for his competitors. last night, isaacson appeared on cbs's "60 minutes" and they played a tape of jobs speaking about his
management style
. listen.

>>so we're brutally honest with each and all of them can tell me they think i'm full of [ bleep ] and i can tell anyone i think they're full of [ bleep ] and we've had rip-roaring arguments where we're yelling at each other.

>>steve was not the world's greatest managers, in fact, he could have been one of the worst managers, always upending things, and throwing things into turmoil. this made great products. but it didn't make for a great
management style
.

>>if you're good at everything, john abe he will is the new york bureau chief for wire.com and joins me to talk about this.

>>nice to be here.

>>and we're talking about the book. and i was commenting that you got the book on your ipad. so it's a
full circle
moment.

>>absolutely.

>>how this book is going to be distributed. but the book does tell a lot about
steve jobs
, a side of jobs that most of us didn't know. so what was most surprising to you?

>>well, he was a famously secretive person. and he created a great company. he actually -- several great companies. i think the most poignant aspect of the book is his battle with cancer, his sort of refusal to come to grips with it in a precision, laser-like way that he had when he was creating products. he sort of went off
into the woods
and tried to deal with it in a very sort of nonengineer kind of way. that's very sad.

>>when we think about the book itself, it is very telling about his battle with the health issues. also, it paints some certain characteristics of his personality in a bad light. one being that he really had no -- i guess he really didn't -- it's a quote from the book, where jobs talks about
bill gates
. and i want to get this right. because he says, bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything which is why i think he is more comfortable in philanthropy than technology. he just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas. did the technology industry, john, know, jobs felt this way about gates?

>>yeah, they were famously at odds and also alike. they had a very sort of fruitful relationship when jobs came back to the company in '97. it was a deal with microsoft which allowed
apple
to become the
apple
we know now. successful, all these products. at the same time, they always accused each other of stealing -- each other's ideas. and, in fact, they both kind of stole an idea from xerox park about the whole
graphical user interface
. so these were nasty things that people said about -- we all say things we regret. i think they had tremendous respect for each other.

>>i think we learn about intimidation, these tactics --

>>do you think?

>>yeah, to intimidate the people out there. so jobs was also quoted as saying about iphone's biggest rival, the android, saying i will spend my last dying breath if i need to, and spend every penny of
apple
's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong. i am going to destroy android, because it's a stolen product, i'm willing to go thermo neek lear war on this. and he also said it was a rip off of the macintosh model. how easy was it to grab the market share that he got?

>>well, see, this is the genius of
apple
and
steve jobs
. there were not a lot of original ideas. and the
original idea
may exist as a 10% what have you come up with. the brilliance is turning that colonel of an idea into something everybody has to have. facebook is the embodiment of the
social networks
. there were plenty before. the brilliance is putting it together and understanding how the package should work. . when we think about the future of
apple
, post
steve jobs
, what does the tech industry say?

>>well, i think it's pretty clear that steve knew that he was dying, wanted to leave a legacy of a company that would survive him. not indefinitely, because nothing is indefinite. but for the 10 or 20 years that the people that he chose would be able to run the place. i don't think anybody is worried about
apple
in the near term or the medium term. i don't think so either. but he certainly made a mark on this world and it will be felt for a long time to come. i'm going to need to go download that book on my ipad. johnnie from wired.com. good to see you.